Hola! Just a quick post from mostly cloudy, sometimes sunny Santa Cruz in Tenerife (this already sounds like the beginning of a postcard!). It looks like the site is running itself well enough without me - I’ll have more time on Wednesday so expect to see a bigger update then. Remember that I won’t be answering email until Monday March 1st.

DCResource have just reviewed the 3-megapixel Nikon Coolpix 3200 compact digital camera.

“The Nikon Coolpix 3200 is a decent point-and-shoot camera, but I found it lacking in two important areas. The first is noise, especially indoors where the lighting isn’t great. This is due to the auto ISO system that most Nikon point-and-shoots have. The redeye test and this picture are great examples of the noise problem. For shots taken outdoors or in good lighting, the noise levels are acceptable. The other issue I had, which affects those who want to take action photos, is the shot-to-shot speed.”

Website: DCResource - Nikon Coolpix 3200 Review

DCResource have posted their review of the Pentax Optio 33WR, a compact 3-megapixel camera with a 2.8x optical zoom and a weather resistant case.

“The Pentax Optio 33WR ($350) is one of the cameras that are water resistant right out of the box. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again here: water resistant is not the same as waterproof. The 33WR can get splashed or rained on, but you can’t go swimming with it. The manual says that it can be submersed in water briefly, and gives an example of washing the camera off in the sink (don’t use soap, though).”

Website: DCResource - Pentax Optio 33WR Review

The Norwegian website Digit.no have posted their review of the compact Nikon Coolpix 3700 digital camera. The Coolpix 3700 has a very different design from previous Coolpix models, with a brushed aluminium body that’s both slim and lightweight. The 3.2 megapixel 3700 features a 3x optical zoom that is equivalent to 35-105mm lens on a 35mm camera.

Website: Digit.no - Nikon Coolpix 3700 Review

The Danish magazine Digitalmagasinet have reviewed the stylish 5 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1 digital camera, which should be available in your local photography shop now.

Website: Digitalmagasinet - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1 Review

The Norwegian website Akamera.no has posted its review of the Olympus CAMEDIA C-5060 Wide Zoom camera, an updated version of the popular Olympus CAMEDIA C-5050 model, with a wider-angle lens that is equivalent to a 27-110mm lens on a 35mm camera.

Website: Akamera.no - Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom Review

The Danish website Finclockers have reviewed the 3.2 megapixel Minolta DiMAGE Z1. This digicam has a 10x optical zoom lens, equivalent to a 38-380mm 35mm camera zoom, which in combination with the digital zoom offers a 40X zoom range.

Website: Akamera.dk - Minolta DiMAGE Z1 Review

For the benefit of everyone who doesn’t live in the UK, Council Tax is a form of personal taxation based on the value of the property that you live in (rented or owned), which is split into different bands. Personally I pay just under ?900 per year to Barnet council, which helps them pay for things like roads and public services. Last year saw massive rises of up to 20% in some parts of the country. Consequently pensioners were the hardest hit, as their pensions certainly didn’t go up by the same sort of percentages. In January a Council Tax Protest took place in Central London, starting as always in Trafalgar Square, and attended by several thousand angry pensioners.

View more Council Tax Protest photos

What would have been the centre-point of the garden in Summer, this sunflower was tied drooping to a post in Winter, dried out but still relatively intact. Weak mid-morning sunlight and the crisp cold air helped it to regain some of its former glory.

View more Winter photos

Well, I should be in the air as you read this, delays at Heathrow permitting. Just to remind you of what the UK is (sometimes) like at this time of year, here are a few more shots of deepest winter, courtesy of Jack Frost, the Canon EOS 10D and my macro lens.

View more Winter photos

I’m off to Santa Cruz in Tenerife on Wednesday for a 10-day trip to soak up the sun and photograph the Carnival, which apparently is the second-biggest in the world after Rio de Janeiro (at least that’s what the guidebook claims). Consequently I won’t be answering emails or updating PhotographyBLOG until I arrive back on March 1st. The Photo of the Week competition will also return on that day.

Newsline International Press Release 17/02/04

Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y., USA; Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan; and Canon Inc., Tokyo, Japan; were the companies leading digital-camera sales in the fourth quarter—a period that saw explosive sales growth and widespread acceptance of filmless photography by average shutterbugs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Total U.S. shipments of digital still cameras soared to 7.5 million units in the period, an 85 percent gain from a year earlier, according to market researcher International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., USA.

For the year, market researcher NPD Group of Port Washington, N.Y., USA, estimated digital-camera sales grew 29 percent to $3.6 billion in the United States, excluding Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which doesn’t participate in the survey. Worldwide rankings for the year aren’t available.

Kodak, with strong sales of its EasyShare cameras, gained eight points of market share to become the No. 2 shipper of digital cameras in the United States in the quarter with 20 percent, trailing Japan’s Sony Corp. at 22 percent. Japan’s Canon gained four points of share and moved up to the No. 3 ranking, at 16 percent. Kodak and Canon moved past the previous No. 2, Olympus Corp., which slipped to No. 4 with a 10 percent share, said the article.

Kopin Corp. Press Release 17/02/04

Kopin’s Ultra High-Resolution Color VGA Display System Selected for Groundbreaking Konica Minolta Eight-Megapixel SLR-Type Camera

TAUNTON, Mass.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Feb. 17, 2004—Kopin CyberEVF(TM) VGA is World’s Highest-Resolution Electronic Viewfinder System in a Digital Still Camera  

Kopin Corp. (NASDAQ: KOPN) today announced that the new Konica Minolta eight-megapixel DiMAGE A2 digital still camera (DSC), the first in a new generation of professional-class photography equipment, incorporates a full-color Kopin CyberEVF(TM) Electronic Viewfinder system, which is the highest-resolution viewfinder ever used in a DSC. The DiMAGE A2 just commenced shipping in Asia and is expected to be available in the United States by the end of February, 2004.

The Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2 is a single-lens reflex (SLR)-type DSC that for the first time enables photographers to preview the color, lighting and composition of what they are shooting precisely as it will appear in the finished photograph. To deliver this unprecedented performance, the DiMAGE A2 incorporates Kopin’s CyberEVF system along with Konica Minolta’s “Super Fine EVF” technology. In addition to providing extraordinary viewfinder resolution, these complementary systems allow the DiMAGE A2 to display remaining battery life and available memory - information that can be critical to capturing once-in-a-lifetime images.

“With its low-power, miniature footprint and exceptionally large high-resolution image, Kopin’s CyberEVF viewfinder system enables us to give our customers - both hobbyists and professionals - a power-efficient, feature-rich camera that will enable them to create consistently superior images,” said Keiichi Ishizuka, division manager, Digital Photo Development Division, Konica Minolta Camera, Inc. Japan. “With the CyberEVF-equipped DiMAGE A2, what you see is what you get - a tremendous advance for photographers who have mastered the art of seeing. The camera also enables exact focusing capabilities through the viewfinder, eliminating the parallax problems common in other high-resolution DSCs. We look forward to future collaborations with Kopin that advance the state of the photographic art.”

The winning image in the World Press Photo of the Year 2003 award has been announced.  color image of a masked Iraqi war prisoner holding his 4-year-old son at a U.S. detention camp by Associated Press Photographer Jean-Marc Bouju won the award. More than 63,000 photos were entered with 81% taken using a digital camera. Visit the MSNBC website to see the winning image.

Website: MSNBC

Website: World Press Photo

Epson UK Press Release 17/02/04

EPSON(r) increases quality and control standards with new colour measurement device

EPSON’s latest Stylus Photo 2100 model includes the new Eye-One( DISPLAY from GretagMacbeth, which allows the user to create individual display profiles for their monitor, enabling them to work with colour more accurately.

February 2004:  The EPSON Stylus Photo 2100 offers semi-pro and professional photographers new standards in photographic output.  Based on EPSON’s commitment to building upon its established A3+ industry benchmark and following customer feedback, this latest model provides imaging functionality to meet the needs of today’s photographers.  The Stylus Photo 2100 combines a revolutionary inkjet system, high-resolution printing and flexible media handling to deliver premium quality photo prints that rival traditional silver-halide results.

The latest improvement of the popular Stylus Photo 2100 includes the new Eye-One DISPLAY from GretagMacbeth. This colour management solution allows the user to easily calibrate and profile all types of CRT or LCD monitors, making it the ideal solution for professional and semi-pro photographers who need consistent, accurate colour.

Fujifilm UK Press Release 17/02/04

17 February 2004: Fujifilm has today unveiled a new addition to its digital camera range based on the company’s highly-acclaimed Super CCD SR technology: the FinePix F710 Zoom. 

The FinePix F710 Zoom enters Fujifilm’s range as a partner to the FinePix F700 Zoom, which has won more awards than any other camera in the company’s compact digital line-up. The new model ups the ante further with a 4x zoom lens, widescreen LCD display and a pop-up flash. The F700 model will continue to be available alongside the F710.

One of the first features visible on the FinePix F710 Zoom is a brand new Fujinon 4x optical zoom lens. Fujifilm’s optical know-how has succeeded in accommodating this extra lens power in a body of unchanged dimensions. With a zoom equivalent to 32.5mm to 130mm on a 35mm camera, the F710 Zoom goes a little wider and a little longer than the average compact digital camera.

In recognition of the growing popularity of the widescreen format used in a range of consumer electronics products, the FinePix F710 Zoom incorporates a new 2.1” widescreen LCD for image capture and playback of 16:9 format images - a picture size adjusted for optimised playback on the now-ubiquitous widescreen television. In addition, printing images is made easier thanks to the inclusion of PictBridge, the industry standard for printing images from a digital camera without using a PC.

Imacon Press Release 16/02/04

Imacon enter market with Ixpress 528C digital camera back - 16 Feb 2004
 
The new back, capable of shooting raw uninterpolated images of up to 528Mb using Imacon’s unique micro-step 4*Res capture process, completes the company’s successful Ixpress digital camera back family, which has made Imacon one of the world leaders in high-end digital camera back manufacturers in terms of both technology and sales.

Says Christian Poulsen, founder and managing director, Imacon: “We have been immensely encouraged by market interest in, and sales of, our range of digital backs over the past two years. Even we at Imacon underestimated the depth to which the market would embrace our technology. The launch of the new Ixpress 528C is the next step in our concept of ‘Unlimited Photography.”

“With the introduction of our Ixpress 528C and its unique 4*Res module (patent pending) - a major technological advance for the industry - we are now providing the photographer with even greater flexibility, and once again proving Imacon is at the cutting edge of digital back technology.

“There have been questions posed as to whether there is an industry need for a 528 MB digital back. However, we believe in developing technology that suits not only today’s requirements, but those of the future. What we have developed with the 528C is a virtually future-proof digital back.”

Now that PMA is over expect to see websites who actually attended the show to start publishing photos from the event (although Phil Askey from DPReview managed to do this throughout the show!). First up is A-Digital-Eye with a gallery showing the new Konica Minolta DSLR, Canon Powershot Pro1, Olympus C-8080 and several other new products.

Website: A-Digital-Eye’s PMA Photo Gallery

Now that PMA and the flood of new camera announcements have finished, it’s a good opportunity to get back to the main point of it all - taking photographs. Here are a series of winter seedhead shots, taken in the same garden as these photos and these ones.

View more Winter photos

I’ve just been idly browsing through my website visitor stats and noticed these three entries:

3711 http://www.luminous-landscape.com/about/pma2004.shtml

1720 http://www.steves-digicams.com/pma2004_index.html

1268 http://luminous-landscape.com/about/pma2004.shtml

It seems that both Luminous Landscape and Steves Digicams linked to my site and PMA Roundup page, and I didn’t even realise until 5 minutes ago! So thanks to Michael and Steve for sending that extra traffic my way :-)